Sheila Benson was the principal Los Angeles Times film critic from 1981-91, following which she was their Critic At Large, writing on all aspects of the cultural life of that city.  If critics can be said to have favorites  -- and they have -- she was a particular champion of independent films, which were finding their voice and their power just at that time.  As a result, her reports from the earliest days of Telluride, Toronto, Mill Valley and the Sundance festivals found their way into what was then the "Industry"-centric Times.

Moving online, she was chief film critic for Microsoft's invaluable Cinemania from its birth to its death, 4 ½ years later.  She has also contributed coverage, essays and interviews to Interview, Elle, Premiere, Film Comment, Variety, the San Francisco Examiner, the Seattle Weekly, London Telegraph's Weekend magazine, Canada's Globe and Mail American Film Magazine and the New York Times.

Affiliated with the National Society of Film Critics, FIPRESCI (the International Film Critics Association) and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (1981-95), she has taught Critical Writing at UCLA and has been a jury member at the film festivals of Berlin, Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, Hawaii, Manila, Seattle, Aspen, Sundance/Park City, Taos, Banff and Palm Springs.  In 1987, she was given the Vesta Award for Journalism for her contribution to the arts in Southern California.  She wrote the narration for Chuck Workman's "The First 100 Years: A Celebration of American Film" for Bravo, and in 2004 wrote the critical essay for the DVD of Horton Foote's Tomorrow for Home Vision Entertainment.  

Having moved to Washington in 1996, she now reviews for the Seattle Weekly.